Organic rice gains more clients but production still low

DAVAO CITY – The market for organically-grown rice has now included the lower economic class despite its high price in the supermarkets, currently the main display centers of growers who wanted to promote public acceptance of the crop.

Restie R. Male, project manager of the Philippine Development Assistance Programme, Inc. (Pdap), said that the market has already cut across the economic classes down to “D”, the poorer section of society.

“That means that more and more people are getting to be conscious of their health, and would pay for their money's worth,” he told a regular Wednesday press conference at the Marco Polo Hotel here.

He said the growers of organic rice, the red and black rice, have opted to display their products in the supermarkets after a study they conducted indicated that more clients could access organic rice, including the muscovado, or brown sugar, in the shopping malls' supermarkets.

Price remained high, he said, selling at P60 per kilo when conventional well-milled rice is selling at P35-38 a kilo. Production cost though, is lower, at P20,000 per hectare, compared to the P30,000 per hectare of conventional rice.

Production though, remained low, with Mindanao producing the bulk for the market in as far as Metro Manila. “We can not supply the needs of clients yet in Metro Manila, even in the local markets in Mindanao where this is grown,” he said.

Organic rice is grown in Davao del Norte and Davao del Sur, and by two farmers' cooperatives in
Maguindanao “although other growers are found from Aparri in the north to Tawi-Tawi in the south”. “Mostly these are family-sized farm lots,” he said.

“There not many growers in Visayas and Luzon, and we have made a little inroad in Nueva Ecija,” he said, adding that Central Luzon, country's rice granary, remained as the major producer of conventionally grown rice that are dependent on inorganic chemical inputs.

Pdaf said that as of the 1.8 million hectares planted to rice, only 14,538 hectares are organic. “We're producing 6.8 million metric tons of conventional rice annually while we produce only 58,000 metric tons per cropping,” Male said.

“But organic rice consumption is growing by about 15-20 percent annually in the Philippines. Worldwide, the market for organic foods is also growing,” he said.

In the Philippines, vegetables are the widely grown in organic farms, he added.

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